The Lynch List, 07-Feb-2011

First: A police officer does her job, and a disgruntled motorist wins $20,000. Only at the Quebec Human Rights Tribunal. Here’s Adrian McNair:

Five years in Canada without getting a local driver’s licence does sound suspicious, even if the reason is that Fini wasn’t eligible for one. I certainly think that if it’s reasonable to force a man from Ontario to get a B.C. driver’s licence within 90 days of arriving from a different part of the country, that it’s reasonable to ask why a man from the Ivory Coast hasn’t obtained one within 1,825 days.

And why wouldn’t the officer ask Fini about the Ivory Coast? That’s where he’s from, isn’t it? That’s where his driver’s licence authorizes him to drive, doesn’t it? Is it imprudent to discuss the legal documents presented to a police officer when attempting to prove he has the authorized right to drive in the country? That’s racist now?

Second: A race-obsessed vice-principal in the Peel education district has asked the OHRT to appoint school board trustees on the basis of race. The Tribunal has agreed to look into things. So long, elected representatives! Hello, identity politics!

Third: From Mark Mercer, who was the target of Pearl Eliadas last year after writing a column on the denouncers:

If we want to live as people who don’t merely react to words but who respond to them on the basis of their evaluations of their worth, we won’t go in for mere denunciation. We will want, instead, to reveal through discussion that what we reject is false or ignoble. That’s why people who aspire to live as thinkers will not occupy a stage or shout down a speaker or complain to a human rights commission or to the president of their students’ association. Instead, they’ll wait their turn and respond with arguments.

Evolution

Like virtually all other virtual things, The Lynch Mob is a not a static object. In fact, one of the earliest things to change was the name itself. This site started out as The Lynch Files - a couple of days later it was called The Lynch Mob. Same blog, different name. During a sabbatical taken by founder Walker Morrow, others stepped up to keep the blog running and continue to hold the feet of CHRC commissioner Jennifer Lynch - and all her provincial counterparts - to the fire.